First Day of Summer and the Rest of My Life
by MandyQ
Summary: Draco is greeted by his father and by big news when he returns home for the summer after his fourth year at Hogwarts. OneShot. Please Read and Review. GoF Spoilers, TDH compliant.


DISCLAIMER: Draco and Lucius are, sadly, not mine. Actually, I own no Malfoys at all, nor any Death Eaters. All things after the little line down there are JK Rowling's property but I mean no harm and have made no money so I may not be in any real trouble.

A/N: an hour or more at a different machine, waiting for a print job to finish- and this happened. 1st attempt at 1st person. It might be crap- but I had the plot bunny hopping around and nothing else to do but babysit a print job.

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"Sit down, son." I had no idea what was going on. My father had come to collect me from the train and he'd not sad a word to me until just now. He'd simply pointed a house-elf I'd never seen before to my trunks, grabbed my arm, and Apparated us away from the station.

Not that my father had ever been known to be particularly loquacious, but he had in the past had at least a word for me in greeting. His silent Apparition (Merlin that was strange! Usually we just took the coach) had brought us somewhere I'd never been. We'd landed on the rear veranda of a manor house only a bit smaller than our own. Father had let go of my arm and led me inside and up the stairs, to an office on the second level.

The whole place seemed to have been shut up some time ago; the drapes were drawn, even though it was summer, and all of the furniture had coverings over it. This room seemed habitable enough, though. There was no fire in the hearth, but at least the chairs were visible and the rugs weren't rolled up. I only wished I had some clue as to where I was.

"Father?" I had finally gathered up the nerve to address him. He turned from hanging his cloak on a coat hook behind the spindly desk I was to sit before and regarded me. How was it that one look from him could turn me back in to the three year old who'd just eaten the last cookie? I held up my hands to him and sat where he had indicated.

"Yes, Draco?" my father finally asked me once he'd dispatched with his cape and his cane and had seated himself behind the desk.

"Where are we?" I asked him. It was the first and most immediately relevant of the million questions I had for him.

"In good time, Draco," he answered. It wasn't unusual for him to put me off like that, but the tone in his voice sounded strangely less formal than I expected.

My father only had two moods; terrible and benevolent. The problem most people had with him was their inability to judge which of these he was in at any given moment. Only my mother was ever really able to tell them apart. I had never managed to learn. But then, I'd always had mother about to see to it I didn't rile him over much. I wondered where she might be right now.

Father reached into a cabinet behind the desk and withdrew a decanter and a pair of glasses. "Son," he said to me, pouring them both full, "I believe it's time that you learn how to drink like a gentleman." He nodded to me once and handed me a glass. I sniffed at it for a moment; this was brandy. This was very good brandy if I had learned anything from sniffing at the decanters about the manor over the years. I nodded and took a sip from the glass, unsure as to how comfortable with drinking I was really willing to appear.

"Thank you," I said to him, relaxing in my chair as I watched him relax a bit as well. He leaned against the back of the tall chair behind the desk and nodded his head at me.

"So tell me Draco," he addressed me, "How was the end of term feast this year? Did Dumbledore have any new sort of poppycock to fill your heads with or was it all the same old blathering."

"He said that the Dark Lord has returned," I shared. "That he was the one who killed Cedric Diggory." I was pleased to be the one to share this with him. Perhaps my father had already heard of the content of the Headmaster's speech and had only come to me for confirmation, but my mother had sent me on some research errand for her this year and I was beginning to wonder if all of these things: the strange location, the research, the brandy, and the questions about Dumbledore, were part of some bigger thing of which I was about to learn.

"And do you believe him, Draco?" my father asked me. Was that a trick question?

"I've seen no evidence either way," I admitted. "Cedric Diggory surely is dead, but Harry bloody Potter got away, and I doubt the Dark Lord would have allowed that. The Ministry is saying that it's certainly not true. However, Dumbledore may be a great idiot, but he's no great liar. At least he believes it to be the truth." I took another sip from my glass and looked up at him again. "What do you believe, father?" He smiled at me. I suppose that had been the right thing to say.

"I believe that I am pleased that my only son chooses to believe neither the bureaucrats nor the do-gooders, but instead his own eyes," he answered me. My father set his glass down on the desk and folded his hands. "And since you asked," he added, "I do not believe in the Dark Lord's return. I know it as fact, for I have seen him."

"Really?" My eyes had grown wide, I could feel it; an affectation of effect that I hoped today might go unpunished. My father seemed not to mind it, as he merely smiled at me and nodded.

"Quite so, my son," he answered me.

"So does that mean that…?" I was speaking out of turn and I knew it and I didn't care. It was worth having father yell at me if I got some information out of the exchange.

"Patience, Draco," father instructed. "I shall tell you everything you need to know," he assured me. 'Need to know' I took note of that, not 'want to ask'. "The rumors that you have perhaps heard from your schoolmates as to my alliance with the Dark Lord are, I'm afraid, quite true," he shared, taking his glass back into his hands and sipping it. He unbuttoned the cuff of his left sleeve and rolled it up to the elbow, exposing to me an ink-black tattoo of the skull and snake, much like the one I'd seen in the sky over the World Cup campsite last August. "I took the Mark in 1974. Your mother knows," he added, "in fact, she was quite valuable in helping us gather information as to the recent impending rise of the Dark Lord; as were you, son." So that research had been for the Death Eaters? My head was spinning. I took another liberal swallow of brandy. "As you may have guessed," my father continued, sipping his glass yet again. "What you saw at the World Cup last summer; all of us were Lord Voldemort's followers at one time, and are again now."

"You mean that Crabbe and Goyle and Nott…? All of their fathers?" I was sure that at some point I would be able to form an intelligible question, but at this moment I was far too occupied with being thrilled or terrified in turn. My father just nodded, calmly.

"Nearly all of your friends' fathers," he answered. "And Avery and Macnair, Macnair's father, Professor Snape…most of the people we know, Draco. I expect you to take up the cause in a few years." Me? I surely hadn't thought that far into the future, I was barely fifteen. "But for now," he continued, oblivious to my momentary crisis. "You will need to begin to conduct yourself as an adult." I nodded. Isn't that what I had wanted from my parents for years now; to be treated like a grown-up?

"Yes sir," I agreed.

"Which brings us to your earlier question," he said. Father slid a paper on the desktop toward me. "This house is yours, Draco," he told me. I looked down at the fancy script on the parchment he had just presented me with. It did appear to be the deed to some substantial property holdings. "As is all of the land it sits on," my father added. "Your mother is trustee until you turn seventeen, but you may certainly do as you wish with the place, she won't try and stop you."

"Mine?" I asked. It was as though he had said it in a foreign language of which I had only a peripheral understanding. My father nodded his head again.

"All yours," he affirmed. "I bought this house for you the day after I found out you were coming. Your mother grew up here. And when your grandfather Black died, your grandmother thought to sell it. Well, your poor mother had just lost her father and her uncle and her cousin and she couldn't bear the thought of losing her childhood home. She'd told me she was pregnant again and I decided then and there that I was to buy this house for you to own someday. It makes me very proud to give it to you now."

"Pregnant _again_ father?" I asked. "But I'm an only child." I saw my father's eyes narrow, but not in a way I recognized as being angry. He sighed and pursed his lips for a moment before answering.

"We didn't set out for it to be that way," he told me, his voice beginning to quaver in a most concerning manner. "Your mother had two miscarriages before you came along. Either one of them could have killed her. We don't speak of it, and if I ever hear of you bringing such unpleasantness up to your mother I'll see to it you'll never speak a word again, do you understand?" I nodded. My father did not make empty threats; especially where my mother was concerned. He was fiercely protective of her, and I knew full well what kind of punishment upsetting her was likely to net me. "Good," my father affirmed. "Now, back to what we were discussing."

"Yes," I agreed, eager to learn anything I could about my father's involvement with Lord Voldemort and about why I had just been given a house.

"This is Black land," he explained, "with ages old magic attached to it; magic that is available to you as a descendant of the noble and most ancient house of Black. I want you to have this place now, and to learn how to use its magic. You will be a powerful wizard, Draco, of that I have no doubt. I have secretly used this house on more than one occasion when I have found it necessary to keep certain objects or activities clandestine. You may do so as well. I will be bringing you here throughout the summer. There are things they do not teach at that blasted school of yours and it's high time you began learning some of them." He flipped a coin out of his pocket over to Draco. "This coin," he explained, "is a way that the two of us can communicate. I have its mate. It will alert me when you are in this house and you when I am here. If I am ever gone and you wish to know where and why, you may come here and I will return as soon as possible and I will tell you. You are ready to know what goes on in the world, Draco. And there are things that you may know that I will not share in our home."

"Why not?" I asked, totally confused. My father chuckled a little. That was odd.

"The details I keep from your mother," he explained. "She does not need to know what goes on within the Order. There was a space of several years when I kept the newspaper from her as well. She is strong, your mother, but she is a lady and thusly has a delicacy about her that I daren't sully. But you, my son, are nearly a man; and you deserve the full truth of our circumstances."

"Alright," I answered. "I understand." No lock in our house could be used against either of my parents, even by another Malfoy. It was old magic, and had been my undoing more than once when I was little and trying to get away with something. If my father and I were really to have man to man frank discussions about what went on among the ranks of the Death Eaters, perhaps it was much better for us to do so where we had no chance of being intruded on by my dear mother.

"Good," he affirmed, rolling his sleeve back down and smiling at me. "And as for out family's 'official' position on the return of the Dark Lord," he added.

"Yes?" I asked, finishing the brandy in my glass and setting the empty vessel back on the desk.

"We're taking the Ministry line," he told me. "Lord Voldemort is finished. He was thankfully vanquished fourteen years ago and we were glad to be rid of him. The claims as to the Dark Lord's return are merely the ramblings of a mad old man and a self important teenager. Do you understand?" I smiled back at my father. I understood completely. Better to let people think Dumbledore a madman and Voldemort a bad memory than to have people out hunting for the Dark Lord and looking too closely at our family or any of my friends' families.

"Makes sense," I agreed. My father nodded, still smiling subtly as he rose from his chair.

"Yes it does," he told me. "I am glad you see that, Draco," he added. Father threw his cloak back over his shoulders. "This summer will not be the time of folly that you recall of summers past," he informed me as he closed the fastenings around his neck. "You have much to learn in a short time, and you will have a great deal of responsibility thrust upon your shoulders very quickly, my son. Do not let it overwhelm you. I will be here to guide you, as will many familiar faces. We are fighting for the life you should have had, Draco," he said, his voice regaining the earlier disconcerting quiver. "And we will triumph," he assured me. My father stepped out from behind the desk and took up his cane again. "I know this is a lot to digest, son," he said, placing his hand on my shoulder as I stood. He squeezed my shoulder just so and looked down at me, with an unusually pleasant look on his face. "And I'm sure you'll have questions. Feel free to ask me. If you ask a question at home that is better answered here, then you may have to wait for the response, but I will keep nothing from you." I nodded.

"Alright father," I affirmed, "I'm ready," I assured him.

"Good," he answered. "Good. However, any questions you have at the moment will have to wait, I'm afraid."

"How come?" I asked. Not that I'd been able to digest anything enough to come up with an intelligent question.

"Because if we're not home in time for tea, your mother will murder me," he said. We both had a chuckle at that. The truth was that mother never got angry about such things; she got sad about them and that was ten times worse. It could make you _wish_ she'd murdered you. I nodded at father.

"Let's go home then," I agreed. "I've not had a decent meal since August."

"Someone should do something about the quality of the food in that school," father asserted, leading me out of the room and back toward where we had Apparated in. "I will not have my son subjected to substandard faire." I could tell that he was only half-joking.

"The hell with them, dad," I said back. I rarely called him that anymore, but something told me that today it would be alright. Something was just a little different between us just now. It was as though we had sat down at the table one way and gotten up entirely different. We were closer all of the sudden; unguarded in a way that I could only distantly remember and yet could never have imagined. "Let's just go home and eat until the elves have to punish themselves for running out of cookies."

"You think you can eat as many cookies as all that?" he challenged.

"More than you can," I answered back.

"Well," he smirked, taking hold of my shoulder to Apparate us home. "We shall just have to see about that."

FIN

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This one-shot brought to you by Regal Cinemas, John Robert Powers Seattle, STAR 101.5 FM, KBSG 97.3 FM and KISS106.1 FM Seattle. I had to sit at the design/print machine for an hour and this story happened. There may be another 1st day of summer added on later- but I have a big piece in 1980 to finish on my other machine. 

Please let me know if I should bother writing the 1st day of summer after 5th year. reviews are better than anything.

-MQ


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